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Like most academics, my CV gradually gets longer, as each year I add new information. Rarely do I go through and remove information that seems no longer relevant.

I realized today that my CV still contains lists of academic awards that I earned as an undergraduate and graduate student. It seems unlikely to me that anybody still cares about those awards at this point, and frankly it feels silly to still be listing awards I won 20 years ago (or more). Is it time to delete those? Or should I preserve them, since they are, after all, part of my record?

tl;dr: Does anybody care, in 2021, that I was a Marshall Scholar in 1994? At what point in one's career is it appropriate to remove undergraduate and graduate awards and honors from one's CV?

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    I would say "when you feel like your new accomplishments after that period outshine those or when you are certainly no longer considered as a fresh university graduate". Some of them could be kept forever: if you were a child prodigy, say, and have won some prestigious competition, it would combine nicely with some adult awards in your field, but, of course, if it is still your best award 10 years after graduation, you'd better avoid attracting attention to it. Others can be removed as soon as you secure a job after graduation. There is no one-fits-all rule. Just use your common sense. – fedja Mar 3 at 2:54
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I will never remove my IMO medal from my CV, and that is a high school award.

Even if you are extremely successful later in your academic career, you probably want to keep awards for the signaling to prospective PhD students, if you think the award correlates positively with academic ability.

If you think the award in question is unrelated to your academic success, you should maybe remove it, and vice versa: if it's something prominent and you remove it from your CV, you signal it is not important to you.

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  • I agree. I'm retired, but my CV still says "Putnam Fellow". – GEdgar Mar 3 at 13:04

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